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Comment by yequalsx | Hacker News Reader

The claim I made is that countries that are nice societies to live in for the average person are strongly correlated with countries that have good social welfare systems. None of the countries you listed fall under what I consider to be nice societies to live in for the average person. China does not meet my standard due to lack of freedom, pollution, level of grinding poverty, corruption, etc.

It seems as though you are under the impression that I was claiming the converse is true. I was not. Canada, Japan, Denmark, France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Austria are examples of countries that are nice places to live in for the average person that have a strong social safety net for the people.

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I see. Many of the countries you listed are actually 'workfare' systems, as this article proposes, and not true 'welfare' systems.

Canada - much of the 'welfare' is paid by the province, not the federal government. The social assistance program is aimed at temporary financial need, and requires people to seek employment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_programs_in_Canada

http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/programs/social/

UK: https://www.rt.com/news/uk-welfare-jobless-benefits-535/

Japan - Japanese society actually attempts to shame people into going back into the workforce: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/09/25/national/media-n...

I don't have time to go down the rest of the list, but my point is that there are few, if any places where somebody can get a 'free ride' while doing little/no work, and certainly no place that's nice to live in (I'm assuming that since you think workfare is a bad idea, you consider 'good' to be the absence of a work requirement).

Welfare is more than just payment while unemployed. Access to cheap higher education, strong programs promoting raising of children (family leave is an example), access to healthcare without fear of bankruptcy and things like this are part of welfare in my opinion. Also adequate prison programs to decrease recidivism, strong laws protecting workers from exploitation. The list goes on. These are all forms of welfare and they help to ensure a healthy environment for living for everyone.

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